When considering Pastor Terry D. Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center it’s easy to reduce his actions to a media stunt to get attention for his small church. But that’s only half the story.

According to the Guardian, Pastor Jones ran the church he established in Cologne, Germany in 1982 and alienated followers due to his “dictatorial stance towards the church’s beliefs and his desire for fame” before getting ousted from the church in 2008.

“The pastor and his wife apparently regarded themselves as having been appointed by God, meaning opposition was a crime against the Lord,” was how one member described their overlordship to Der Spiegel, while Andrew Schäfer – a Protestant Church official who monitors sects in the region where the church is located, said “Terry Jones is a fundamentalist.”

So it’s obvious that Jones has a plan for America; all he needed was a means to the end, and attacking Islam was it. You can’t buy the publicity he got while declaring his intention to burn the Qur’an (he canceled his event) and now he has the notoriety he so desperately sought.

This is a man who believes he’s appointed by god and is a fundamentalist; he has a political program – theocracy – and he wants to establish it here. In order for his theo-fascism to take root, he needed the right chaotic conditions – like other forms of fascism and political extremism – that it needs to thrive in. Attacking Islam is the perfect fit.

So, when Obama said that the stunt was a “recruitment bonanza for al Qaeda,” that’s probably what he had in mind; after all, if the base increases membership and the number of terror attacks increase in the United States, then more people will be receptive to his extreme message.

Likewise, when Taliban commander “Zabihullah” told Newsweek, “By preventing this mosque (Cordoba House) from being built, America is doing us a big favor,” it’s unlikely Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and others who are against the Park 51 project would’ve been disturbed. The more Islamists and terrorism, the more people are gonna listen to them.

Therefore, appealing to Pastor Jones to not burn Qur’ans on the grounds that it will endanger American lives completely misses the point. Al-Qaeda recruitment is music to his ears; without it, he can’t convince people to accept a theocratic regime they otherwise wouldn’t accept under normal circumstances. If Obama wants to stop Al-Qaeda recruitment, he might want to focus less on an idiot pastor in Florida, and more on dismantling the Afghan occupation, for starters.

He might want to end the pro-Israel stance America has had for so long. And he might want to issue an apology – and offer compensation – for American atrocities against Iraq; in short, implement a post-imperial regime.

But he’s not going to do that, unless the masses force him and any other president to do so. The same movement must also confront the anti-Muslim ideology of people like Pastor Jones, Stop Islamization Of America, the Tea Party, etc. Only then can we have our cake and eat it, too – freedom and security.